(50) The blood of all the prophets.--Here again we note a variation from "all the righteous blood" of Matthew 23:35.

Verse 50. - That the blood of all the prophets, which was shed from the foundation of the world, may be required of this generation. He looked on to his own bloody death; to the day of the last witness of Stephen and of James; to the long series of persecutions which his servants would ceaselessly suffer at the hands of the Jews; - he looked on to the state of Israel growing worse and worse, till the day when the storm of Divine anger at last burst over Jerusalem, and overwhelmed the city and the temple and the nation. That terrible day came in less than forty years.

11:37-54 We should all look to our hearts, that they may be cleansed and new-created; and while we attend to the great things of the law and of the gospel, we must not neglect the smallest matter God has appointed. When any wait to catch something out of our mouths, that they may insnare us, O Lord, give us thy prudence and thy patience, and disappoint their evil purposes. Furnish us with such meekness and patience that we may glory in reproaches, for Christ's sake, and that thy Holy Spirit may rest upon us.That the blood of all the prophets,.... The same with "all the righteous blood", or the blood of all the righteous men, in Matthew 23:35,

which was shed from the foundation of the world: for there were prophets from the beginning, which prophesied of Christ, Luke 1:70 and whose blood was shed very early; for Abel, the son of the first man, and who was the first whose blood was shed, was not only a righteous man, but a prophet; for by the sacrifice which he offered up, he gave a prophetical hint of the sacrifice of Christ, in that he spoke beforehand of it, as being dead he yet speaks: and now the Lord was about to send apostolical prophets, whom the Jews would slay, and he would suffer them to slay, that so the blood of all the former ones,

may be required of this generation; and they be punished for it: just as in Babylon will be found, when God makes inquisition for blood, as he sooner or later always does, the blood of the prophets and saints, and of all that are slain upon earth, ever since Rome papal has been in power, Revelation 18:24.